Deadliest Warrior: LegendsReview

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Could Cortes take Alexander the Great? You're about to find out.

By Colin Moriarty

When I was a history major in college, there were certain hypothetical questions that no one asked. My concentration in American History often brought up queries like "what if the Confederacy won the Civil War?" and "what if George Washington's party never opened fire on that French scouting unit during the Seven Years' War?" But never was the question "could Dwight Eisenhower kick Andrew Jackson's ass?" ever muttered. Not even once. Yet, Deadliest Warrior: Legends deals with just such similarly absurd subject matter.

If the name Deadliest Warrior rings a bell, it's probably because you've caught the television show of the same name. On the show, Deadliest Warrior is all about analyzing various warriors from throughout history, as well as their weapons. Could a kusarigama-wielding ninja slay a pirate with a blunderbuss? Sure, it's a stupid question. But it's also fun question to ponder, bringing acceptability to the show's aforementioned absurdity.

Exit Theatre Mode

Deadliest Warrior: Legends is a fighting game, and has come quick on the heels of the original Deadliest Warrior game that came to PSN last year (a game that IGN alumnus Nate Ahearn gave a 7.0). The two games are quite similar to one another, except that Legends lacks the anonymity of the original. Instead of fighting as a nameless Centurion or Viking, you're instead fighting as a real bona fide badass from history. Attila the Hun, Hannibal and Sun Tzu are just three of the nine characters that are available to you right off the bat.

Combat takes place in various 3D arenas, where you'll be able to fight a computer-controlled opponent. Alternately, a friend can play with you locally, and you can even jump online to play with the masses. This isn't a fighting game based on crazy combos and health meters, however. The idea here is instead to use your weaponry to inflict as much damage to your opponent as possible. Critical hits can be delivered to vital areas of an opponent's body, making him fold like an accordion in a single hit. Though battles can last far longer than mere seconds, they usually don't, making this a sort of less-fun, less-polished version of the PlayStation classic Bushido Blade.

Duck!

Each character has specific weapons available to him, and as there are three classifications of weapons, as well as unlockable arms to add to your arsenal, there's plenty of customization to be had. Each character has a short-range melee weapon to use (think a sword and shield), a long-range melee weapon (like a halberd), and a projectile weapon (such as a bow). Utilizing these in unison with one another to inflict damage sounds fun, and in short bursts it is, but Deadliest Warrior: Legends is brought down by imprecise mechanics. Characters are unbalanced as well. The fact that I picked up the game and played through as William Wallace on my first go without losing to anyone suggested that the game was too easy, even on hard. But the subsequent fact that I could barely progress as Sun Tzu on my next play through suggested that this wasn't the case at all. Instead, it confirmed the roster's unbalanced nature.

These qualms aside, the strength of the experience rests in its General Mode, which is a sort of Risk-lite strategy game that combines tabletop gameplay elements with Legends' fighting system. There isn't much depth to this mode (especially for strategy game nerds like myself), but there's still a great deal of fun to be had here. You can pit yourself against the computer or another player locally, taking over territories and eventually sacking each other's fortresses, which result in one-off fights (ala Arcade Mode) that settle the dispute once and for all. This is a random mode to be sure, but I'm glad it was included.

Exit Theatre Mode

But even with an extra like that, and even with plenty of unlockables, (freeze-prone) online and local multiplayer and leaderboards, Deadliest Warrior: Legend barely rises above the level of good. There's fun to be had here, and I imagine that the brutality of hacking off someone's limbs and beheading them will get some giggles out of a fair number of gamers. But I just wasn't that impressed.

The Verdict

If there&#Array;s one thing I can say about Deadliest Warrior: Legends, it&#Array;s that you get a hell of a lot of value for your $10. And in that case, even a game that has some problems like this one can still be a guilt-free purchase for those of you on the fence. It&#Array;s impressive that so much has been packed into such a cheap downloadable game, but I would have liked more attention to the core gameplay, and less attention paid to the glamour of gore. This isn&#Array;t a purchase you&#Array;ll regret by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn&#Array;t one you should just jump into without knowing precisely what you&#Array;re looking for, and precisely what you&#Array;re getting in return.